Goodnights
by TMBlue
Summary: COMPLETE! Ron/Hermione drabbles for seven nights.
1. 040811

_**A/N: ***comes to* Oh. Oh, hi, everybody. *clears throat* Okay. Things have been insane. I've been really flaky with my FF page, I know. First, there were some rather serious family issues going on. Second, I was gone for most of July and lost my job. Third, I've been frantically job hunting without internet access and working whenever I can find anything at all. So, as much as I'd love to have been posting like a fiend all summer, that has sadly not been the case :(_

_BUT. I want to get back into my fanfic and into writing in general. So, as an exercise to get my fingers typing again, I wrote this teensy drabble on August 4th and decided I'd do one each night for seven nights. Here is day one. I'll post the others in the coming days. I hope you enjoy them. And there will be updates to my multi-chapter fics coming as soon as my home computer is reconnected to the internet, so everybody cross your fingers! xxx_

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><p><strong>Goodnights<strong>

**04/08/11**

This was home. The cobwebs in dark corners might not quite be real if he couldn't see them, like a dream he could wake from. And she slept below him somewhere, where he could imagine her much more vividly than last year, than those weeks when she'd bunked with Ginny at the Burrow and he'd rolled his eyes every time they'd linked arms. But he didn't feel especially alive now when he'd wait for her, like he had this summer, at number 12. And what had changed, really? Their eyes had met on the stairs when she'd finally arrived, and was that a twitch at the corner of her mouth as he'd cleared his throat to say hello? His ears burned in the dark, and he remembered a silly notion from early age that such a feeling signified that someone was thinking particularly of you. He sighed when he closed his eyes and couldn't help wondering... and maybe he hadn't forgotten about each and every one of those cobwebs. Maybe not. But maybe tonight, they were just a bit further away.


	2. 050811

**05/08/11**

A cricket chirped in the distance, persistently. He burrowed his head deeper into his lumpy feather pillow and groaned, temples pounding. So it wasn't enough he'd nearly bled to death days ago... he now endured nightly headaches, surely a sign of his malnutrition; insomnia, most especially when it was one of his infrequent nights to help with the watch... So he was off to a lousy start. And where were they? He'd hear their whispered voices, often accompanied by a sting of jealousy buried a bit too deep to dig free, but then he'd listen to Harry's berating. Somehow no matter how hard she tried, it wasn't enough. Was it not enough for him either? Here he was, virtually useless, and feeling more so every time he wallowed in that truth. And anger would rise, tugging jealousy up along with it. So maybe it wasn't just malnutrition. What was this feeling in the pit of his stomach, like the wind had been knocked out of him, like all his hopes were being stabbed to death in front of his bloodshot eyes? But then she'd creep back into the tent, worn down and afraid, and he'd wait for her to notice him, to catch his eyes shining back in her direction, reflecting light from her bluebell flames, the ones he kept close to remember, in the darkest times, what he truly had... But she never saw him. And he was beginning to wonder, as the world grew colder, if she ever really had...


	3. 060811

**06/08/11**

Two camp beds sat empty at the Burrow, brought out only on special occasions such as this, times when the old wooden walls stretched with the addition of guests. One of those beds, the one across his room, would be occupied by his best friend in two days, and he felt a wave of relief knowing his summer of endless chores and constant nagging by his mother was about to become much more bearable... And not to mention the slightly heroic pride that came from saving said best friend from his more than unpleasant relatives. So he smiled for a moment... but it was fleeting, replaced by a wave of confused panic. Somehow, he tended to forget the impending arrival of Harry Potter, when it came right down to it. Somehow, he shuddered in the dark for a very different reason, all because of a letter he'd somehow sent, inviting her. Tomorrow. She'd be walking through his house tomorrow. He would never admit it, but he'd folded all of his clothes. He'd wiped the dust from the desktop and even braved the task of removing spider webs from the corners of his room with an old broom. And maybe this part of his preparations was the most telling... the reason why he lay in bed tonight, heart thumping audibly and fists clenched involuntarily into his bed sheets. He'd risked facing those spiders for her. But he wasn't any closer tonight to understanding what it meant... Though, as he shut his eyes, he certainly knew it meant something...


	4. 070811

**07/08/11**

He stretched out atop the frozen leaves of the forest, eyes peering through a canopy of branches, seeking out the stars that seemed innumerable here, so far away from civilization. It reminded him of the Burrow, to see the world this way... though he felt detached from it. He couldn't know truths beyond these branches and the quest he'd returned to complete with them. Here, he shivered in the night, no lovingly knitted woolen to cut through the cold. Yet all of these things, what should have made him homesick, which had done so before, now served only to make him feel that much more at home. Especially when he heard her sigh from somewhere just behind him, inside their tent. Especially when he felt her close as she stomped out, circling round their clearing, twirling her wand between her fingers. Especially when she paused to glance in his direction and he pretended not to see her there, biting his lip and holding his breath in case she actually spoke to him. And this time, she stood hovering there for far too long, much longer than she'd dared before. Was she forgiving him? Slowly? His heart beat a painful rhythm as he waited... if only for her just to scold him for lying on the ground when he should be inside sleeping in his bunk, preparing for his watch. He'd taken second shift, over and over, tiny glimpses of his reparations. But still, they remained frozen in time, his body and hers, the closeness yet too distant. And he exhaled as she moved. Not yet. But soon. And he grinned once more for possibility.


	5. 080811

**08/08/11**

He'd never before realized how glorious it could be, what he'd seen. But now that he'd seen it... Though Harry had assured him it couldn't be a sign of things to come, he couldn't help hoping that for him, perhaps it was. Seeing himself that way, confident and happy, made him long more than he ever had before for it to come true. He'd been all he could have wanted in the mirror, no longer overlooked, no longer overshadowed by his brothers. Almost like a hero, dressed in brand new robes, sun on his face and crowds around him. But why was it so important, really? He'd never thought about that. So he wanted to be noticed... but for what? Attention? Fame and glory? He couldn't be sure why, exactly. But at that moment, he pictured a little girl's terrified eyes, shining with tears beneath her chaotic hair. He could see the troll, hovering above her, and hear his own voice booming to echo through the room, wand pointed steadily towards his enemy. Well. Actually... he'd been pretty good then, too, yeah? But he hadn't meant to be so confident and brave. He hadn't woken up on Halloween morning, ready to save anyone's life. But he had, hadn't he? Really. Pride bubbled through him as he remembered her thankful nod, her lies to protect them. He shook his head, desperately craving just one more glance into the mirror, realizing he couldn't quite see his reflection as perfectly now in his mind's eye as he could mere minutes ago. But he shook his head, all the complications of dreams fading into the distance as he considered the realities of tomorrow.


	6. 090811

**09/08/11**

But why did he feel so miserable? He remembered a moment in time when he thought it would make him happy. Oh, and it had, for a time. Truly… right? Why wasn't he so sure anymore? It wasn't fair. Things had been so simple before. Was there a moment when everything had changed? Or had it been slowly happening, all this time? He couldn't retrace his steps back far enough to figure out what exactly had led him here. Where had the wrong turn first been? And he could see Lavender's mischievous eyes when he closed his own. He wanted to shut out what he'd done, but dreams only led him closer to the truth all over again. He'd sit up late and remember when it had been _Hermione's_ side he'd been sitting by, _her_ eyes he'd gazed into, the excuse of concentration on her intelligent words keeping his secrets hidden beneath the surface. Like always. But distance between his days and words spoken from a tongue he held captive made it harder to imagine that he'd find his thigh pressed to hers ever again, heads bent over _Hogwarts, A History_. Was it all his fault? Had he thrown something away that he hadn't even known he'd possessed? Or had she always been this distant, really? If he could have looked into her heart, would he have ever found what he used to let himself hope for? But he'd been thinking about this all wrong, hadn't he? It didn't matter if her heel rested against his shin because she was distractedly absorbed in her latest Arithmancy paper… or because she _loved_ him. Either way, it was _her_… next to _him_. And he needed it that way. Always. Well, he had a lot of work to do. So many backwards steps, until maybe, eventually, he could find a sign, one that showed him, clearly, the mistakes he'd once made. Somewhere. But for now, his alarm buzzed midnight, his body hidden behind four walls of crimson cloth. He let out a sad chuckle. He'd almost forgotten. Almost…

_Happy birthday, Ron._


	7. 100811

**10/08/11**

One day, he wasn't going to have to say goodnight. He wasn't going to watch her walk away, or see himself to the door. It occurred to him suddenly, as he held her hand in a tiny room that smelled of salt water. The room seemed to murmur as she slept, a hum beneath fatigue and hunger, lulling him to a place he couldn't quite name… not peace, surely, but close. Revelations hadn't been so frequent. He'd simply been drifting along, lately, when he'd slowly discover something that had been there all along, like a dream he was distantly remembering. But when things didn't go as planned, when his eyes were opened forcefully to something new and beckoning, it was like stumbling off a cliff, but knowing you'd make it and live to shout about it to the misty, grey skies. He could feel it tonight, a calming breeze on the back of his neck, and his touch finally slipped gently from hers as he backed away, leaving his future to rest. He couldn't be sure how he knew, or what had made it so. But now that he did, he was no longer afraid. He half wished that she'd wake up now and call him back to her side, that she'd tell him tonight was that night. Maybe one day was now and there was no reason to wait. But what if she _did_ and he fell beside her, never to wake up to this world again? Content and happy and amnesia-ed to all the troubles of his former life…

So he'd wait. Because just now, fire still danced in a guarded place, ready to take on the world at his command… He closed her door with a soft thud, resting his forehead against the other side. After all, goodnight was only a word, no matter how unimpressive. And there were so many other much more beautiful words, just waiting to be found.

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><p><em><strong>AN:** So that wraps it up! I hope you enjoyed these! And yes, I did make up the word amnesia-ed... sorry? I just absolutely needed that word there! :D_


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